


moments of pause

by Blepbean



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, F/F, Flashbacks, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25263175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blepbean/pseuds/Blepbean
Summary: Ellie has these moments, where she pauses for just a moment, and she’s reminded of the past with her and Joel. Before Jackson. After Jackson. The good and the ugly.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	moments of pause

**Author's Note:**

> Italics are flashbacks, I made all of these up except for the 2nd last, it’s canon except I altered it a bit. This was supposed to be quick but it took too long djdbjxbxjxhxjx.
> 
> Kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated.

Ellie hates this patrol. She hates the path that they have to take, steep cliffs, too many trees, too many mountains, riding on the horse gets too painful sometimes. Everything looks the same, surroundings slowly blending together and it’s easy to get lost. Jackson only takes this patrol every six months, not many infected pass through here. It’s the worst patrol, heard many stories of people taking it, almost getting lost, the cold nights, the mud.

And they picked her, Ellie’s first time doing duo patrols. 

Fucking great.

“You okay back there?” Dina asks.

But at least it's with Dina. She’s pretty awesome, great friend and she’s a fucking badass. It somehow makes up for this patrol that they have to take, doing it with one of the best people that she knows. Ellie sighs, slowing down as they start to head down hill. 

“I’m fine, just… confused, bored and tired,” she looks around, just seeing the same trees, the forest standing over them, sunlight piercing through the canopy. There’s so much greenery here, it’s kinda pretty if she’s gotta be honest.

“Can’t believe they chose the first timers to take the worst patrol,” she sighs, reaching into her bag to take out her map, “if we get lost or die I’m blaming whoever picked us two to take the worse route.”

“Yeah,” Ellie replies, too caught up on Dina talking. She likes her voice.

“Don’t mean to pry but… what’s up with Joel. I mean… after you ran off that night--”

“It’s nothing,” she says, responding too fast, too quickly, wanting the conversation over and done with. Ellie doesn’t want to talk about Joel, they’re done. She can’t forgive him for what he's done. Too many broken pieces to try to pick up and repair, they’re a broken line. Can’t fix it anymore. Throw it out into the infected. 

They’re done. It’s over. No more Joel and Ellie.

“Alright,” Dina says, not pushing any further, “the uh… the checkpoint is just up ahead, an hour ago, we hurry up.”

“Yeah, sure.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ “Hey kiddo, you uh… you doing alright.” _

_ She groans. Her nose is clogged, her throat feels like shit, her whole body is in pain and she feels like she’s on fire. Ellie shifts her lying position on the couch that she sleeps on every night, pulling up the blanket and fixing her only pillow. _

_ “Please don’t lecture me, I'm not in the mood,” she whines, coughing into her sleeve as she stares at the ceiling, “I feel like shit.” _

_ Joel laughs, filling up the room with a sort of warmth that reminds Ellie of her Mother’s tea back then, a homemade recipe, spreading warmth throughout her body. If she had honey she could make it, but it’s winter, their bee colony is on hold, no honey for the recipe, no warmth. _

_ “Not yet,” he says, “I won’t lecture you yet.” _

_ He walks over to Ellie, taking the damp towel from her forehead. He’s always so gentle when she’s sick, so soft, moving so slow as he drains the water into the bucket on the floor, “you’re so stupid Ellie,” he says, dipping the towel into a bucket full of hot water near the small heater. _

_ “I know… I’m sorry.” _

_ He walks over to her, kneeling down to gently place the towel on her forehead. She shivers, staring at Joel smirk, “was it worthed skipping training to--” _

_ “Ewwww, yuck, yuck we didn’t do anything. Y-you’re getting the wrong idea!” _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She’s stupid. She’s so stupid. She’s reckless, always has been. It’s what Joel always complained about her, always rushing in, never planning ahead. It might be the death of her, she might die in Seattle on some revenge-cliche-story, waiting for the scars to go to the left so that she can sneak out of here with a bleeding leg. 

Slow her breathing down. Lean against the wet wall of a bombed office building, newspaper about some stupid celebrity back then strewn about on the floor. She looks pretty though, wearing a dress with all diamonds while she poses. Why were people obsessed with diamond back then?

Ellie doesn’t understand it.

“Don’t lose her!” She hears one of them call out, hearing their footsteps slowly reach her. They’re trying to corner her, surround her. Simple tactic, reliable and trustworthy. She’ll have to make a run for it soon, one last ditch effort, one last stand against three people.

“Don’t kill her here,” another one says, another footstep, closer to her now, “bring her back to Haven.”

She can hear her own heartbeat echoing inside her ears, so loud that it overtakes everything. She’s going to die here, without getting revenge. This isn’t fair. This isn’t fucking fair. Ellie didn’t go all the way out to Seattle just to die. She doesn’t want to. She wants to… she wants to--

She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm her down. It’s what Joel told her before taking a shot. 

Clear your mind.

Count one to three.

Exhale.

“We’re gonna fucking kill you!”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ “Just tell me if you want to stop Ellie.” _ _   
  
_

_ “I’m fine.” _

_ “You’re flailing your arms, you want to--” _

_ “Push the water with both of your arms, I know it’s just kinda hard for me.” _

_ “I’m right here, I got you.” _

_ “Now what.” _

_ “I think you’re ready to dive Ellie.” _

_ “Joel are you crazy!” _

_ “It’s not that complicated--” _

_ “If I drown you’re gonna have to give up coffee.” _

_ “You’re not gonna drown.” _

_ “The lake is fucking deep!” _

_ “Just… trust me.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “If I drown--” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Then I give up coffee. Just listen to me clearly. You want to be sorta like a dolphin and just… dive into the water.” _

_ “I’m gonna drown.” _

_ “Take a deep breath first, then underwater you want to propel yourself by kicking and parting the water.” _ _   
  
_

_ “Joel--” _

_ “Just trust me, alright?” _

_ “Okay, okay.” _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Hey,” Jesse says, walking over to Ellie to sit next to her on the theatre seats, “seats comfy.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Dina worried herself to sleep after taking care of you. I can’t do that shit, Jesus Christ how the fuck did you not die,” Jesse chuckles. They’re sorta like that, laughing in the face of grave injuries, making it into a joke. They’re like siblings, a brother that she never had. Always leaning onto each other for support while treating death as a sort of joke.

“I never die. I’m like… Bear Grylls,” she leans back against her seat, reaching into her bag to look at her card collection to see if she got them all. Stupid little cards that don’t do anything for her survival, always wanting to collect flimsy paper left behind from a world that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s weird, like she’s peering into the world in the past through trading cards.

“Who’s Bear Grylls?”   
  


“I’ve seen him in some posters near here,” she takes the guitar case from the ground, propping it up as he opens it, “All I know is that he’s a badass survivor that drinks his own piss.”

“I mean I would be amazed if I’m gonna be honest.”

“At what? Someone drinking their own piss?” She takes out the guitar, playing a few chords as she strums. Just checking it’s on tune, if it sounds fine. Something that Joel taught him, always check before playing.

“Yeah… I guess.”

Silence.

These silences between people that she trusts, people that she knows and will protect with her whole body even if it means that she'll die. It’s the type of moments that’s peaceful, soft, gentle. Just enjoying their presence, being around each other is enough.

But this silence, it’s different. It’s the type that’s suffocating, filling up the air with unsaid secrets and words that want to come out. It’s the type that Ellie hates, the scuttling and the shifting and the ringing always somehow filling in the silence, these quiet moments that’s tense. It shouldn't be tense, it’s with Jesse.

It shouldn’t be like this. It feels like they’re just two strangers that had a past.

It hurts.

She puts the guitar down, “I’m shocked as you are to find out that she’s pregnant.”

_ Oh here we go, this is gonna be a shitshow. _

The feeling between them changes, Ellie’s hands always wanting to grasp as something, to hold something, to fiddle with something. She pulls out the loose strings on the chair, biting her lip. This is dumb. This is stupid. She should’ve never said anghing. She should’ve just kept the silence and let her suffer, she should’ve just shut her mouth.

“I know,” he says, “it’s fine Ellie. We just need to get back to Jackson. I wonder what Joel would say about this.”

She feels her whole body collapse on her. What  _ would  _ Joel be thinking about this? If he was alive, if he was here right in front of them. What would he say to her? What would he lecture her on. She looks up to the ceiling, staring at the blinding lights. Trying not to think, trying not to look back at those times Joel helped her, all those moments, those times where she needed her.

“This isn’t about him.”

“Then what is it then Ellie?”

“It’s about…” she pauses, looking back to the guitar as she wipes the tears from the corner of her eyes, “I don’t know.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ It’s so cold. _

_ She already used the blankets to keep Joel, not enough space for her to dip under. She can hear him coughing, wheezing as he groans. She knows he’s hurt, she knows he’s ill, hurt with a bleeding wound. He’s restless, shifting and moving every once in a while. _

_ She knows he’s hurt. _

_ But she can keep her eyes hurt, can’t sleep from Joel always moving and groaning. She doesn’t know how to tell him, she did everything she could. Keeping him warm, scraping up any meds that she could find around here. She knows he’s hurting, he hates to see him like this. The one person that she can trust be in pain, so fragile as he mumbles something under his breath. _

_ “Joel?” She mumbles, moving closer to him, putting her hand on his forehead. He’s burning, he has a fever. She can probably only give him some hot water for the fever, there’s no towel to wet and put on his forehead to lower the fever. It feels like some sick, twisted trick that some good is playing on them. Forcing her to take care of Joel even though half the time she doesn’t know what she’s doing. _

_ She wipes her tears, staring out into the window in the corner. Still dark, there’s a huge storm out, too dangerous to go out to go and find some antibiotics for him. They might die here, they might get stuck here for the rest of the week while Ellie desperately tries to save Joel. He’ll die first, slowly and painfully as she watches him get weaker and weaker. _

_ Until she’s next, more painful this time, more heartbreaking. Pulling herself apart to try to save a lost cause. That’s how she’ll die, caring about people too strongly, even prepared to go throw her life away for someone that she loves.  _

_ “Please wake up Joel,” she sobs, resting a hand on his chest, “just come back.” _

_ If Riley was here next to her, she would be letting her lean against her shoulder, running her fingers through Ellie’s hair, maybe rub circles into her back to help her calm down. If she was here, she would know what to do. She knows more about treating people more than Ellie, she should be her with her, she should be alive.  _

_ But she isn’t. _

_ And that hurts her. _

_ Too many people that she cares about being dead or falling victim to a stupid bite. Stupid infected. Stupid world. Stupid, stupid, stupid. _

_ She just wants Joel back. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


This is messy and dirty. Mud on her cheek, blood streaming down her face. She reeks of blood, sweat and tears, having to take down some sick fucked who wanted to kill her and a horse that almost got her. The water isn’t helping, feeling the mud on her shoes seeking along with the water inside her shoes.

They’re both dirty. Her and Abby. The person that she can all the way out here to kill, to take revenge. Relieve the nightmares and hallucinations that she sees from the corners, the demons that lingers inside her mind. She came to finish what she started, to kill  _ every  _ single last one of them.

By her hand.

And Abby’s last. She’s going to die by her hands, in the beach where the dog is too thick, hiding them from everyone else.

She has an advantage, she reloaded that as she dodged a punch from her. She’s frail, thinner and weak, slower. How long did they torture her? Left her hanging by those logs to rot and die? Should’ve been longer, wanted her to suffer longer.

Feel what Ellie felt when she watched Joel get murdered right in front of her.

Another punch, another swing and another uppercut. Everything is slowly blending together and Ellie is finding it harder to get a grip on reality, like she’s slipping from her real self, losing control of who she really is. Feeling the fury, the very inferno that drove her all the way here taking over here.

And now she’s watching her struggle as Ellie gets on top of her. Hands around her throat, Abby underwater, fighting for her life for stupid  _ kid _ . A kid that she dragged into their mess, it’s her fault.

It’s her fault.

It’s her fault.

_ It’s her fault. _

**_She deserves to die_ **

Strangle her harder. Push her deeper into the sand. Watch her as she struggles to get up. She’s so close, feeling the fire burning and driving her to the edge. Ellie’s feeling herself slipping, who cares if she loses herself.

As long as Abbys’s dead.

But she looks into her eyes.

And the inferno inside her suffocates.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ She’s terrified. _

_   
_ _ It’s been months since she was at Joel’s place, last time she went she only stayed for as little as possible, yelling at Joel that he’s late for his patrol. It was quick, easy, just a simple yell, trying not to draw back the memories of the past when she quickly got out of his hair. _

_ But now it’s different, this is going to be painful.  _

_ She shakes off the snow on her boots as she steps on his porch, seeing Joel play his guitar in the middle of the night. It’s somehow nostalgic, the strumming of the guitar echoing throughout the night. It’s a song that she’s heard him play before, he taught her how to play it too. _

_ Sometimes she plays it from time to time, like she’s trying to grasp the past and go back to where she didn’t know anything.  _

_ He stops playing, puting the guitar down. She hates this, long lost years making it harder for the both of them to even act natural. It’s tense as she walks towards the railing, resting her hands on the cold wood, fingers tapping the rhythm of the music. Ellie always hated these awkward moments, lingering silences. She just never thought that it would ever happen between her and Joel. _

_ He walks slowly, standing next to Ellie but making sure there’s distance between them. They can’t be close to each other anymore, it’s gone now, the bridge is burned. _

_ But they might be able to build a new one. _

_ “If Tommy send you here for his--” _

_ “He didn’t send me to get something from you,” she says, looking at Joel. It’s been years since she’s been this close to Joel, only sometimes looking at him from afar just for a second or two.  _

_ “Do you want to step inside for some coffee or--” _

_ “I’m fine.” _

_ Silence. _

_ She claps her fingers together, looking up at the sky, just a dark sea full of stars, a void full of nothing. If she could go to space, she could. Travel to the stars to leave everything behind, leave this lingers silence. Maybe this was a mistake to talk to Joel, she’s so stupid sometimes. _

_ She sighs, looking back at Joel, “I had Seth under control.” _ _   
  
_

_ “I’m sorry.” _

_ “And you need to stop harassing Jesse about my patrols.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Okay,” he says, way too quiet, way too soft, almost like a whisper. She never heard him like this, awkward, shifting his weight from one leg to another. She doesn’t do that, she fiddles with her fingers, picking at the wood underneath her hand. _

_ She did it, she did what she said, she came here to talk to him after what happened. She should be leaving, don’t drag this any longer than it has to, it might reopen stitched wounds that have grown ugly and infected on the inside. But Ellie can’t leave, her body isn’t letting her. _

_ “Dina, she your girlfriend?” _

_ Fuck _

_ “She’s not--it was just one kiss, it was uh,” she pauses, taking a deep breath for continuing,” it was just a stupid kiss. It means nothing.” _

_ She’s finding her eyes moving a lot, not set on one thing. She looks down to the tiny garden that Joel made last year, tiny wooden boxes that don't have anything planted, only covered with a white sheet of snow. She remembered him always talking about having a little garden back then. _

_ “I don’t know what that girl’s intentions are but… she would be lucky to have you.” _

_ She lets out a small chuckle, filling in the small space of silence between them. But it quickly goes back to the awkward and tense atmosphere. Ellie can feel the fire, the very inferno slowly rising and building up. So much anger, so much hate that’s grown inside of her. Little girl that travelled with Joel changed, no more kindness and sweetness, rotting with anger and violence. _

_ Like she did to that asshole near the patrols last week. _

_ Or to Jason just yesterday. _

_   
_ _ Now to Seth. _

_ But that inferno is turning into tears, she wipes them away, “I fucking hate you.” _

_ “I just--” _

_ “I was supposed to die in that hospital,” she cuts him off, raising her voice, slamming her hand on the railing. The inferno is building up, turning into anger tears that she’s trying not to let out. She turns her face towards Joel, only for a second. _

_ But she can’t face him. _ _   
  
_

_ “My life would’ve fucking mattered. But you took that away from me.” _

_ Little girl with Joel turning angry. _

_ How much did she change? _

_ Her inferno is dying down, suffocating as it leaves behind raw memories of what they used to be. It hurts, it’s leaving her both empty and sad. Ellie wipes away the tears with the sleeves of her jacket, looking away from Joel. _

_ “I just didn’t want to lose another daughter--” _ _   
  
_

_ “Do I look like Sarah to you Joel? I’m not her, I’m Ellie.” _

_ Grief stricken Father always wanting to replace his dead daughter. _

_ Now everyone is dead. _

_ He stands up straight, exhaling a shaky breath, “If somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment,” she looks back at Joel, “I would do it all over again.” _

_ She clears her throat, finally having enough courage to look at Joel, eyes soft, wet from the tears forming in the corners, “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that… but I would like to try.” _

_ She lets out a shaky breath, taking the leap of faith, trying to rebuild the burned down bridge. It’s like they’re opening raw wounds, infected with the past as it looms with lingering ghosts, trying to treat it slowly. It’s going to take long, it’s going to be awkward. But this is the right thing, right? This is a good step towards going back to who they were. _

_ Joel and Ellie. _

_ The Father and Daughter duo. _

_ “I’d like that,” he says, she can hear his voice breaking, not looking at Ellie, trying to hold it in, not to cry. _

_ “Okay,” she starts to step away, she doesn’t want to leave, she doesn’t want to go down those steps, to lay down on her couch where she’ll overthink about everything. She wants to stay, with Joel on the porch. She wants to be near him, get closer to him and try to get the lost years even though they can’t.  _

_ “I’ll see you around,” she says. _

_ “Yep,”Joel responds, probably didn’t know what to say, clearing his throat as he exhales slowly. So many lingering silences, moments where they’re just like strangers forced into a room to talk to each other.  _

_ But they’re getting better. _

_ And she walks off, despite everything in her body wanting to go back and to fall apart in Joel’s hands, to hug the person that she has loved like a Father but that love died through little lies. But they’re gonna try to rebuild it all back, to make up the long lost years. _

_ They’re going to try. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She doesn’t want to talk to Tommy right now, she wants to push it off later to next week. Not now, she’s not emotionally ready for Tommy. Too tired and exhausted to talk to him, the last time they talked left scars on their relationships. Ellie wants to come back to Dina’s house, come back to her arms and wrap her arms around her where she’ll be safe and they’ll stay like that for hours until JJ wakes up crying. Just peaceful moments, doing nothing for hours, only listening to the radio in each other’s arm.

But instead she’s outside, getting meat for their dinner when Tommy is  _ coincidentally  _ next to her.

“Hey,” she says, clearing her throat.

“Hey,” Tommy replies.

“What are you uh… what are you getting?”

“Just chicken.”

Silence.

There’s so many people here during the afternoon, it doesn’t help that it’s summer. The sun is unbearable during Summer in Jackson, leaving the earth dry and unforgiving, drying up lakes and rivers near here. It’s going to be a long summer.

And lonely too.

“I couldn’t kill her,” she says, taking a deep breath before continuing, “I just couldn’t—“

“It was my fault that I told you to keep my promise, I was such an asshole.”

Ellie glances towards Tommy for just a second, seeing him wiping away his tears from the corner of his eyes. They’re both kind of the same, always hiding the tears, not wanting to cry in front of people. They lost Joel, they lost so much. She can’t play the guitar like she used to anymore, she’ll have to learn how to play the guitar left handed. 

It’s like she lost a part of herself.

“She has a kid, his name was Levy.”

“Is that why you couldn’t kill her?”

“No, no it was something else.”

She doesn’t want to say it out loud, it’s hard to explain. There was this moment of clarity, where the inferno, the burning fire inside her, stopped a minute while she was killing Abby, trying to drown her, trying to fill the demons inside her so that they won’t torture her no more. 

There was a click, a realisation that it’ll never go away. That gaping hole inside of her will never go away, it’ll be a rotting wound that’ll eat her from the inside out. It will still be there after she kills Abby, it won’t fix or change anything. The demons will still be there after, the hallucations will still lurk in the very corners of her mind. Her memories will always hurt, it’ll be filled with ghosts when she looks back on them.

But she can learn to live with it.

“Ellie” Max says, smiling sweetly as she hands her the plastic bag, “I added a bit of something extra there for you and Dina.”

“You didn’t have to but… thank you.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ She feels like she’s on top of the world, on top of the highest mountain. There is this fluttering feeling inside of her, so warm and so filling, taking over her whole body full of joy and excitement. That was so cool, that was so fucking cool and she can’t wipe the smile on her face. _

_ “Oh my god!” She yells, hands in the air, hearing the flocks of bird high on the trees fly high into the air. _

_ “If you don’t shut up you’ll attract every infected person in here Ellie.” _

_ She laughs, adjusting the bow on her shoulder as she vaults over the log, “isn’t this area clear.” _

_ “There’s still a few stragglers that can slip through.” _

_ “Stop worrying Joel! What matters was that—“ _

_ “Don’t say anything else let’s just… let’s just keep what we saw a secret.” _

_ “Okay,” she puts her hands in the air, walking backwards so that she can face Joel, “only if we can have a movie night.” _

_ “Ellie—“ _

_ “Come one we haven’t had one in a while,” she whines. _

_ “Stop doing your puppy eyes, it always works on me” _

_ “Is it working?” _

_ “.... it is.” _

_ “So movie night?” _

_ “Fine… but I’m picking what we’re watching.” _

_ “Deal!” _

**Author's Note:**

> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/peridotluv?lang=en)   
>  [my tumblr](https://blepbean.tumblr.com/)


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